Please do not post "myname@gentoo.org" type requests. This is not a place to do that. The service doesn't exist yet. If the service is created, there will be a place to get your username.

Please do not post, "only if it is free" messages. The idea is to generate donations for Gentoo in addition to providing a service. If that isn't what you'd be interested in (for any reason), this thread isn't for you.

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I will remove posts of the kind I mentioned from this thread, so please don't post them.

Normally I wouldn't post a topic like this in the moderator section, but I have 2 reasons: PM does not allow for multiple recipients (that I've figured out) and I wanted 'filtered' responses.

My idea would be to allow Gentoo users to sign up for a pop3/webmail email service using kanuslupus@gentoo.net or something similar.

Questions:
Would this be reasonable? How difficult to adminster (etc.) would something like this be? Would the hardware/bandwidth resources put too much of a drain on existing infrastructure?

Would a minimal cost (covering hardware/bnadwidth etc.) with donation likely be too expensive? The basic charge, IMO, would need to include a small donation. For example, if $5.00/month covered resource expenditures, add a minimum $1.00 donation?

Of course, any other insights are welcome._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

Also, an e-mail 'forwarding' service. I purchase kanuslupus@gentoo.net, which will then forward email to another account. Useful for keeping 1 address even if you switch ISPs. I forget what this is actually called, don't think it is forwarding though.

Jabber server could be another._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

E-mail forwarding is easier, since you don't need storage space, just bandwidth. Plus you can generally store all the forwards (with Postfix at least) in a database, so it would be nice and easy to do. Heck, if you got a merchant account, you could automate the whole process._________________I don't believe in witty sigs.

The general purpose would be to provide email to those interested in subscribing to it and thus bringing in some donations to Gentoo. The questions is, what would the cost be to Gentoo, and would that cost be prohibitive._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

As delta407 said, the cost for forwarding is much, much less than the cost for offering pop3/IMAP boxes. Even for a pop3 service, it's still not that hard (I don't think) although then you run into the issue of user support and helpdesk stuff. (or more of it than you do with just forwarding)

I know there are some other OSS projects offering such a service (though I can't think of which ones off the top of my head) Might be worth contacting them to see how effective it's been and whether or not the ROI has been high enough.

--kurt_________________The problem with political jokes is that they get elected

As delta407 said, the cost for forwarding is much, much less than the cost for offering pop3/IMAP boxes.

What? I didn't say that. I said exactly the opposite, actually.

delta407 wrote:

E-mail forwarding is easier, since you don't need storage space, just bandwidth. Plus you can generally store all the forwards (with Postfix at least) in a database, so it would be nice and easy to do. Heck, if you got a merchant account, you could automate the whole process.

Forwarding is cheaper than POP3/IMAP. With POP3/IMAP (or even webmail), messages can be retrieved multiple times and there's a lot of protocol overhead. Storage space must be obtained and allocated. Various interesting laws can take effect, spam becomes an issue (since it consumes valuable space), and overall more bytes are transmitted to the client than with e-mail forwarding.

With forwarding, the server just looks up in a database if an account exists and, if so, SMTPs the message to the destination server. Negligible storage space is required (the OS and spool directory, really), less bandwidth is used (no graphics on webmail, no verbosity of IMAP, no constant polling of POP), and life is generally simpler and easier for everyone.

That said, I think this could be done rather easily, and would be a Good Thing overall._________________I don't believe in witty sigs.

That said, I think this could be done rather easily, and would be a Good Thing overall.

At what cost though? Even though the goal is donations for Gentoo, users aren't going to pay significantly more than other similar pay services._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

As delta407 said, the cost for forwarding is much, much less than the cost for offering pop3/IMAP boxes.

What? I didn't say that. I said exactly the opposite, actually.

delta407 wrote:

E-mail forwarding is easier, since you don't need storage space, just bandwidth. Plus you can generally store all the forwards (with Postfix at least) in a database, so it would be nice and easy to do. Heck, if you got a merchant account, you could automate the whole process.

Forwarding is cheaper than POP3/IMAP.

delta407 -- if you read both of our quotes, you'll see that they do say the same thing.

Anyway, there are two problems at this point that I'm working on overcoming:

Someone already owns gentoo.net and gentoo.com. I plan to write a pleading 'donate to a good cause' email to them both, but I'm not holding my breath. An alternative is users.gentoo.org, but I think third-level domain names for email addresses are sort of dorky.

My time right now is somewhat limited. As you may have noticed, the Dcoumentation Project has been languishing for the past couple of weeks as I've been preparing to write the CISSP exam. That's tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have a bit more time after that, though work has a nasty way of intruding on my hobbies. Nitro has also mentioned that he can help out with the coding to automate the system, so that will help as well.

Also, I'd like to get some ideas on how much oomp a mail server would need to have. Here's a comment for you to agree or disagree with:

Quote:

A PIII 500 with 256MB of RAM and a 8GB hard drive could handle POP3/IMAP, forwarding services and webmail services (squirrelmail) for 1000 total clients and up to 100 concurrent clients, assuming 60% forwarding-only clients, 20% POP3/IMAP clients and 20% webmail clients. Also assuming each POP3/IMAP/webmail user had a maximum of 10MB of mail space

[EDIT]changed quote to be a little more descriptive

--kurt_________________The problem with political jokes is that they get elected

Last edited by klieber on Sat Sep 21, 2002 1:01 am; edited 1 time in total

5/2/1 doesn't sound bad. 'Setup' fees could also be a 'donation'. For example, a $10-$20 minimum setup fee (additional donation optional) plus $5/mo (additional optional). Assuming that's enough to cover usage. Next would be, how much of a mailbox would be allowed et.c etc._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

Maybe this is no longer true, because people today seem to think nothing of sending massive HTML documents inline and massive attachments that would have been considered mailbombs in the time when I was doing this, but I ran all the mail forwarding for my entire company, and many of my partners' friends and family several years ago when we had a .com domain and no .co.jp domain yet.

At the most, I think I had 50 forwarding users, going to an average of 1.5-2 addresses each (multicast forwarding), as well as two local users - me via normal maildir, and my wife (our relationship was still in beta testing at this point, so girlfriend is technically more accurate) via APOP.

The machine that did all this was also my main development and desktop box, and intracompany FTP and WWW server. Admittedly, there was not a lot of content - we were just trading files, bug reports and new releases of software.

But this was in 1994-1996 over a 2B ISDN line (128Kbps) on a Pentium 133 with a 4GB SCSI Barracuda (which is happily running Gentoo now, and the Barracuda is still the root partition). Maybe my coworkers didn't get a lot of email, but I found email forwarding to be an application that is not very demanding of resources._________________For every higher wall, there is a taller ladder

The idea isn't to offer a free service. The idea is to find a way for people to get something in return for a donation. The donation will 'cover' costs of the service as an absolute minimum. Donations are the key. If someone isn't willing to pay, like progster mentioned, they can get a free one anywhere._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

Obviously, the domain has to be available. As for gentoo.org, I'd think that isn't likely to happen as gentoo.org would imply official affiliation with Gentoo._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

well, one could argue that if you pay you become affiliated with gentoo ... :) but of course you're right... my point was, that has to be a cool domain name, and gentoo-users.com or gentoo-email.com are not :)